“You did what?” Agent Price stared at the other two agents. He knew it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but for some reason he’d thought this was going to end in arrest, not summary execution. Yes, Serenity was an alien and probably an accessory to kidnapping or murder, even if he didn’t perform it himself. That didn’t mean he needed to be treated differently than any other criminal.

“Killed the alien.” Agent Smith shrugged. “Probably, at least. Two good shots in the chest, no armor. Not sure why the earlier ones didn’t penetrate, but the last two did.”

The door to the secure room clicked closed behind the two latest people to enter. Agent Price recognized them as the fourth agent who accompanied them to the “high magic zone” - Miller, maybe? - and his boss.

Agent Price’s boss took a seat at the table while Agent Miller stayed standing.

“That’s interesting. Both because you’re talking about it while the door is open and because it doesn’t at all match the report I got on the incident.” Agent Miller’s voice was dry as he spoke. “The report I have is about an attempted assassination of an undercover Secret Service officer, Russell Latimer. Fortunately, his bodyguard managed to protect him. No indication of why an undercover officer would have a bodyguard, but the implication appears to be that he’s investigating some sort of large counterfeiting ring, possibly Mafia-related. No reports of injuries, and two shots to the chest without armor would certainly have been included. Care to explain?”

Agent Price wondered who Agent Miller was. Was he in Agents’ Smith and Jones chain of command? From their reaction, it seemed likely. Then why had he gone into the “high magic zone” with them without telling Agent Price who he was, other than another DHS agent?

Agent Miller nodded. “That’s what I expected. You two are off this case. We’re moving back into intelligence gathering anyway, since clearly something important was missed, but you aren’t going to handle the execution if it happens. It’s looking unlikely at this point. On that note, Taylor.”

Agent Price saw Agent Miller turn to his boss. Why had he left out any mention of his rank?

“You’ll be met when you leave this floor by two IA officers. Give them your badge. You’re suspended pending investigation. I can’t have people issuing rogue kill orders. The investigation will be classified, so if that’s all you’ve done, you can expect to be offered a nice early retirement package which you will accept. If the investigation finds anything else, that may change.” Agent Miller’s voice was still flat and calm; he could have been discussing the weather instead of informing a man his career was over.

He had to be with Internal Affairs, and he had to be fairly high ranking or he wouldn’t be saying what would happen. He must have called the meeting to drive the point home that they were being watched - or perhaps to drive home what the consequences of stepping out of line were?

“Agent Price.” As Agent Miller spoke his name, Agent Price felt himself start sweating. What had he done wrong? “So far, you’re the only one on this particular mission to have brought back actual evidence and kept yourself out of trouble; you haven’t even been noticed by the target. Well done. The reward for a good job is a harder job; you’re being transferred, but you’ll continue to be assigned to the Serenity case. We need evidence that he either is or isn’t Thomas Rothmer. Not supposition, evidence.”

Agent Price was first relieved and then horrified. “He can’t be! He’s not even human.”

“We have documented evidence of a Species change. Before you ask, I know it wasn’t faked; I was there. It happened yesterday and was more severe than Serenity’s seems to be. It’s not public yet, but I’m sure we won’t keep a lid on it forever.” Agent Miller seemed to start to say more, but stopped and seemed to think better of it. “If you can’t find proof, we’re going to have to act as if we believe Serenity is or was Thomas Rothmer. We can’t do much about his parents for the next few months, but they are being watched. If President Stewart loses the election, there’s a good chance they won’t matter for much longer.”

“We don’t really have anywhere to start on the people-shooting-at-Russ issue. Unless whoever it was left something significant behind when he fled, there’s unlikely to be anything we can use for divination. Unless you think you or your mother will see something?” Serenity turned to look at Rissa.

Rissa shook her head. “I can try. My odds of success aren’t great. I don’t have enough information to guide it, so unless it either has a major impact on my future or something leads me to it, I’m unlikely to find it.” She paused and bit her lip. “Ever since I got back from the Tutorial I’m seeing fewer incidents of … I don’t know what to call it. Magical problems? I usually couldn’t do anything about them, but I used to have an unwanted vision once a week or so. Sometimes they led me to an artifact, that’s how I found about half of them. I haven’t had a single one since I got back.”

Serenity heard what she didn’t say. “You think they were caused by the curse. That either it was directing you to them or the fact that you were cursed made you resonate with them.”

Rissa nodded. “It might have made finding the gunman easier. So Mom might have a better chance than I do, especially if she can see the site. The best I can offer is my psychometry.”

“Your psychometry’s been very helpful so far.” Serenity didn’t want Rissa to be too hard on herself. She was the one who let them know that the person who set the vase in place was almost certainly a magical being of some sort and she’d confirmed that the vases all came from the same place.

It was too bad she wasn’t able to see if they were all made together or any details on how they were made, but that probably wasn’t important. At least, it wasn’t unless they wanted to make more. Serenity figured that between Katya and himself they could probably figure out a replacement method anyway. It wouldn’t need to be anything more than temporary, because Serenity wasn’t going to just store something like that indefinitely; he would choose to kill it instead. That was the only way to know it would never get out.

“Eh. The point is that it won’t help us find where they are now, but Mom might be able to.” Rissa shook her head. “If we even want to go after them. Is it worth it?”

Russ shook his head. “I’ll ask your mother, but for now I think we can leave that in the hands of the local police. The one thing I really want to know is how they knew I was there.”

Serenity shook his head. He couldn’t answer that one. It seemed like no one else could, either.

“Then there’s nothing to do about that immediately, maybe ever. Let’s talk about the curse.” Russ leaned forward on the table. “Phoebe hasn’t been acting like herself ever since the incident with Liam. I thought it was the stress over getting you two captured, but I’m not so sure now.”

“To break a curse, you need either a good witch or to know who set it,” Katya offered. “Most curses break when the person who created the curse dies.”

Serenity shook his head. “The Voice says it’s a deific curse. Breaking it isn’t going to be easy.”

“Gods always leave a way out, at least in legends.” Raz pitched in. “You know, a girl is cursed to sicken whenever she leaves the mountain because she angered the god of the mountain, but it’s broken when she marries a man named Mountain?”

At everyone’s blank look, Raz looks down. “It was a favorite when I was a hatchling. There’s a lot more to the story than that.”

“It happened several centuries ago. Raz loved it because Sunrise plays a part in how the story unfolds, before she founded the Clan.” That was Aki’s voice, but Serenity was hearing it with his ears instead of his mind. How strange.

He glanced around the room; it wasn’t until he looked straight above Aki’s core that he saw the ‘decorative markings’ that clearly contained the rune for ‘sound’ that he knew how she was doing it. “Nice one.”

“It was expensive and it won’t last long, but I get tired of waiting on people to translate for me.” Aki sounded rueful. “I won’t do it often; it really is expensive.”

Serenity glanced around the room. The only person who didn’t have a way to hear Aki was Katya. Ita could hear Aki as long as she had her ‘shared understanding’ spell on someone who could hear Aki, while Raz, Rissa, Russ, and Serenity could all hear Aki on their own.

Come to think of it, he didn’t think Ita had cast it this morning; she was trying to practice her English without it.

“There is an exception in the curse,” Rissa leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. “That’s how Serenity broke it for me, I’m pretty sure. He’s my Child of Time.”

Rissa paused in thought; it was Russ that spoke the words of an old prophecy. “Only a Child of Time can unbind Fate. All we can do is be the Child’s Eyes. That is who we are. For each of us, a Child is born. We pray to meet our match, but most never do.”

Russ looked at Serenity as he spoke. “That’s what Phoebe told me before we were married. That if she ever found her Child of Time, he or she would take precedence over me because they would be mystically tied together. I didn’t believe it then, and I’m not sure I believe it now. Even if it’s true, how would we apply that to everyone who is cursed, all at once? That’s a way out for one person, not an end to a multigenerational curse.”

Serenity frowned. If there was only some way he could share Unbound. He pulled the Skill up and shared its details.

Unbound

Time does not quite have the same hold on you as it does on others, and Fate does not rule you. You can slip between the lines of the future and past or even blur them if you have the desire and the strength. That which will be has no power over you, and you can break the strands of Destiny for others if you dare. This ability is always active and has always applied to you

“I have the feeling this is what we’re looking for. I just don’t know how to use it.” Serenity’s statement was met by a long silence.

Serenity stared at the Skill description. If only there was a way to teach it to someone else? He’d never believed in Fate, and being able to go back in time and change things made him even more convinced it was nonsense. Prediction of the future was possible, obviously, but it wasn’t infallible and he preferred it that way. Predestination was a self-fulfilling trap.

“Maybe…” Aki’s voice trailed off.

“Do you have an idea, Aki?” Russ was clearly not about to let her “maybe” pass unquestioned.

“Dungeons are not like you Pathed. You get new Skills for each Path you take; we get new Skills for each Level we gain. Usually, that’s things like being able to create a specific new monster, or even a closely-aligned group. Mine were completely reset when I established a new dungeon, and I haven’t finished choosing them yet for my two new Levels.” Aki stopped for a moment. If she were human, Serenity would have said she was checking the room to make sure everyone was following her. Maybe that was exactly the case?

“We get to choose our Skills from a list; some of them are always available, while others come from how we’ve developed and what we’ve done. I have a couple of options that might be able to help.”